freddie

The Bottom's Within Sight - Barron's

I was about to write something in reaction until I read eddie64's comments. Now no need.

I'll just add that many moon ago when I was living in Argentina, I read an article in Marcha, a left-wing Urugayan weekly, by James Petras, a leftist academic sociologist and specialist in Latin America. It was on the riots in the US in response to the assasinations in 1968. It was titled El Saqueo como Politica, y La Politica como Saqueo, which means Looting as Politics and the Politics of Looting. Petras noted that the rage of the disenfranchissed was directed to looting longed for commodities instead of in any organized political organizing. Decades later, the LA Riots in reaction to sanctioned police brutality were directed at massive looting. Just imagine what will happen in our urban areas once commodity consuption is restricted by no credit and increasing unemployment. The religion of America is consumption - you are what you wear, you are what you drive, or you are nothing. After 911, our Decider declared, "shop"!

The US is bankrupt, and the credit bubble cannot be duplicated in the short term. Massive inflation is the only way to buy time, and massive public works and maybe a real physical green revolution can provide productive investment, but that means progressive decoupling from the world economy. But this is a violent country, and I fear you haven't seen nothing yet while you all await "the bottom" to try to make a few devalued bucks.